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The Nambiris Civilization
The Nambiris Civilization, also known as Nambirithen, is the name for a series of city states and kingdoms historically located between Lake Tharthar in the north to the Persian Gulf in the south, along the Mesopotamian river basin. The name Nambirithen is also used as a name for the province that historically served as the capital of various Nambiris kingdoms, aside from short periods where dynasties ruled from the cities of Eridu or Farthen. Nambirithen is home to the Grunori people, a group of people from the Indus River Valley. They originally migrated along rivers west through Persia and into the Syrian desert, where they further migrated into Mesopotamia before settling in the south around 3400 BCE. Mesopotamian and Persian influences on their culture and language can be traced to the migration of the Grunori people, as well as later trade with the Akkadians and settlement by the Iranians. Grunori could sometimes be found outside of Nambirithen, so the term "Nambiri" is used to describe citizens of Nambirithen and differentiate between them and the Grunori who lived in other areas. After being unified, the Nambiri extended their hegemonic influence over the states of Elam and Sumeria, though rebellions and successions crises caused the kingship to change hands regularly. The last of the Nambiris states ended in 224 BCE, when the region was conquered by the Persians. After the invasion, the famous Cyrus Cylinder was created to pacify the Nambiris peoples. The Nambiri are notable for being the creators of one of the first known systems of writing and the Zusraist religion. Culture Languages Old Grunoris The Old Grunoris language is the language that the intitial Nambiri settlers of Mesopotamia spoke. While often viewed as the "purest" of the Nambiris languages, texts as far back as the reign of Nambulrasuten I, when the earliest Grunoris script was developed fully, show signs of Akkadian and Sumerian influence on the language, such as the word "Bel" signifying a person of authority, which is a cognate of Akkadian, Phoenician and Illyrian-Semitic words such as "Belu" and "Ba'al" Texts written in Sumerian cuneiform by the northern neighbours of the Nambiri confirm these findings. The structure of the Grunoris language at this point remained distinct, however, which is one of the ways it can be seperated from the Sumerian language isolate and the semitic Akkadian languages. Complex nouns were combinations of more simple nouns: For example, the word meaning "king", Nambelri, is a combination of the word for superior, (Nam) the word for lord (Bel) and the word for man. (Ri) Sentences were usually organized in a predicate noun, verb, subject noun fashion, although regional variants sometimes had alternate structures. The best example of the Predicate-Verb-Subject pattern is the title of the ancient Nambiris epic, the Sur-Ino-O-Ri-Et-Nam-Ni, which is often translated as "The Queen Conquers All Inferior People", where the predicate (all inferior people/Sur-Ino-O-Ri) appears before the verb (Conquer/Et), with the subject (The Queen/Nam-Ni) at the end. Later Nambiris languages did not have this structure, in place of it appears an Indo-European sentence structure due to Persian influence. The simple words in the Old Grunoris language, with some exceptions, are pluralized by adding "O" to the beginning (For example "Ri" becomes "O-Ri" (People)), turned into an adjective by adding an "S" sound to the end of them (Zu (God) becomes Zus (Divine/Holy)) and turned into a verb by adding an "I" sound to the beginning. (Di (Another term meaning God, corrupted from Iranian languages) becomes Idi (Creates/Turns into)) Late Grunoris Sometime around the 23rd century BCE, the citizens of Nambirithen began speaking a "creole", described by one of the kings of the time, Nambleravera IV, in a fragmented tablet as a "barbaric language hiding behind the words of one more civilized." It was unknown if the language first gained popularity under his rule, or if it had already been established. The negative reaction amongst the aristocracy was most likely due to the recent conquest of the Akkadian Empire north of Nambirithen, (Knowledge of the time period when the Akkadians were conquered helps to date the emergence of the language) and lead to Old Grunoris becoming a prestige language spoken by Nambiri kings for many centuries afterwards. Middle Grunoris was notable for having increased influence from Semitic and Sumerian sources, as well as Indo-European dialects that have their origin in displaced Hittites and Iranian settlers. The words of the language were a roughly even mix of Old Nambiris cognates and Akkadian loanwords, and had a sentence structure similar to Sanskrit, Latin and English. The prophet Zusra spoke Middle Grunoris, and the holy text that detailed his life was originally written in the language, although the most famous version, the Zus-Ri-Nam-Zus-Ri-Idi-Zus-Zu, was an Old Grunoris text that had been written for the convenience of the upper class, as evidenced by the use of the more archaic "Ri" symbol rather than the at the time more commonly used "Ra" symbol. Zusra did, however, lend the language some credibility among the kings and by the 13th century BCE Old Grunoris had been completely displaced, even among rulers, by Middle Grunoris. The language remained relatively consistent until the Persian conquest, at which point it slowly began to go extinct. Religion Main Article: Nambiris Religious Beliefs The Ozu Belzu and his fellow deities were said to once be humans, whom sixty of the original humans worshipped, although this number can fluctuate in early stories depending on the source. The sixty humans who worshipped them became the Nambiri, the sixty who didn't became the foreign people of the world, and the five other humans including Belzu were said to have ascended to godhood and become the Ozu. The Ozu are almost always depicted as having five members, but depending on the region Belzu may be either a member of the Ozu or a being much more powerful than them, leaving a regional deity to take his place as the fifth member. The Odi The Odi were a pantheon of gods that predated Nambleravera's conquest of Nambirithen, and may have represented the belief system of another Grunoris culture that shared the region with the Nambiri. If this is the case, the Odi were most likely demonized and combined with other deities that had oppressed humanity in the founding Nambiris myth, after the conquests of Nambleravera I. Zusraism Zusraism is an alternative Nambiris belief system developed around 1550 BCE. It involves the worship of Suzua, also known as Ashour in Zawbara' and in early texts as Belzu, who is said to incarnate as all other deities in the world to help humanity. The main religious text in the Zusraist religion is the Zus-Ri-Nam-Zus-Ri-Idi-Zus-Zu, which details the story of Zusra and Inra, two brothers who seek immortality, who then learn of Suzua and preach his word. The primary opponent of Suzua and the source of human temptation, was Enkigal, a shapeshifting trickster who sought, and obtained, immortality, and convinced Inra to kill Zusra. Enkigal was also known as Kigaletli, or the Lion who Conquered Death. History Namneten 1 Period After migrating into the southernmost portion of the Mesopotamian river system around the 3400 BCE, the Grunori developed several independant city-states, with linguistic and cultural differences between each other. Each city state had a patron deity that protected it, simple spartan stone shrines being the primary method worship during this time. Most records of this time come from the Late Namneten 1 Period, when simple methods of writing first appeared, or from the writings of their contemporary Sumerian neighbours. Sumerian texts are the origin of the name Nambiri, which was a corruption of Nam-Vi-O-Ri. Accounts from this time period tell of a semi-mythical king by the name of Nambleravera from the city-state of Namneten, who turned the other city-states of Nambirithen into tributaries for Namneten, effectively unifying the region and forming the precursor to Nambirithen. Because of Namneten's influence, the chief deity of the city, Belzu, slowly absorbed qualities of other deities, until he was acknowledged as the chief and most powerful deity. Prior to his death, Nambleravera subjugated the Proto-Elamites east of Nambirithen, leading to the region becoming a contested state for a significant time afterwards until pressure from the Nambiri and Iranian migrations caused the end of the Elamite culture. During a four hundred year period after the death of Nambleravera, a set of pictographs developed in Nambirithen, eventually becoming complex enough to grow into an alphabet, known as Grunoris A to historians. This alphabet was mostly used by the king and his administrators, partially leading to the split between the nobility and the poor later in Nambiris history, while a seperate, but related script developed simultaneously in eastern Nambirithen, with some Elamite influences. However, the Nambiris-Elamite script died out quickly, in part because of Nambulrasuten 1's edict that made the use of the Grunoris script mandatory for soldiers, including Nambiris-Elamites. The Reign of Zusnamninamviori and the kings of Farsithen